February 2026

Hello Friends.

I hope you are doing well. This is going to zig before it zags. Buckle up and hold on.

When I was seven, going on eight, two deranged people, one in December of 1980 and another in March of 1981, did some deranged things, and somehow The Catcher in the Rye was "blamed" for the actions of those unwell men. I’m not going to use their names here. I don’t want to give them more space in the world. If you know, you know. If you want to look it up. You can. 

The point is, I wanted to understand how a book, a work of fiction no less, could have that much power over the minds of men in the real world. I’d read a lot of books up to that point, and while I wanted a magic wardrobe or to fight a giant spider, or to have a wolf-dog as my best friend as I trekked across the Alaska wilderness, none of those things had come to fruition, so I couldn’t understand how a work of fiction could be blamed for anything. 

Eventually, when I was nine, I read The Catcher in the Rye for the first time. There were no rules about what I could or couldn’t read. I had my own library card. I walked alone to the library. I picked up whatever was lying around and whatever I could get in the school library, too. I just read anything, and no one ever said “don’t read that,” so nothing stopped me except for getting a copy. That book, to this day, is hard to get from public libraries. It is always on hold, or people steal it, or both. 

Of course, I can’t remember reading it the first time exactly, but I do remember not feeling the urge to do harm to anyone, but I did want to befriend the troubled main character, Holden Caulfield, and so I did. Every time I read this book, I get something different out of it. I change, but Holden never changes, and yet, I understand it differently each time. I pick up on a word or a phrase I missed before or didn’t think was that significant. As my experiences in the real world grew, I could relate even more to his experiences. 

I read it at least twice more while I was in middle school, and by the time I got into high school and discovered that other people also read it, I read it some more so that I could talk to them about it. Instead of Holden being my friend, he was our friend. We could worry about him. We could, unfortunately, talk like him and be a huge “pain in the ass,” as he would say. 

In college, there were more people who read it, and I, too, read it again and again. In fact, my college library was so awesome that it had stacks of bound magazines dating back to the turn of the 20th century, so I was able to find the original short stories that inspired and ultimately became part of the complete novel. I was, as Holden would say, a bit of a fiend. 

I just finished reading it again a few days ago. I resisted the urge to sit down and read it all in one sitting, which I’ve done plenty of times. In fact, sometimes, I read it in one sitting and then read it again the next day. Different day, totally different experience. Seems crazy, but it’s true.

This time, I was deliberate. I read five chapters a day for five days (six on the last day, but that last chapter is a page and a half). It was an experiment with my emotional memory. Of course, I know what happens in the book. I know every beat of it, but I wondered, now that I’m 52 and I haven’t read it in a few years, how it would feel. By forcing myself to sit with the book that way, instead of zooming through it on autopilot because I know all the beats, like what happens with Old Spencer, Maurice, and Phoebe. I know the story about Allie and what happened after it, and how it was the catalyst for everything that happens in this book, but…how do I feel about it?

Guess what? I still love this book, and it moves me to tears and fills me with hope. I love every single word. Every time Holden calls something “lousy” (50 times), I am here for it. Every single time he calls someone a phony (35 times), I nod in agreement or shake my head at his pigheadedness. Every goddam time he uses goddam as an adverb or adjective or as an interjection (245) always spelled wrong without the n, I feel his rage, and pain, and untreated PTSD. Yet with all of that, because he is safe at the end, it makes me feel hopeful.  Holden is still my friend. I’m still worried about him. He has so much to work through.

Here’s the thing, everyone: this book isn’t a how-to, it is a warning. This is not a book that is a call for violence; it is, without a doubt, about a boy begging for compassion. You aren’t supposed to read The Catcher in the Rye and want to be Holden. Holden doesn’t want to hurt the phonies. He complains about movies being phony, and we see him go to the movies four times. He complains about how terrible everyone around him is, and all he wants is to be around people. He is hurting. He needs your help. He doesn’t need an army; he needs a hug.

Notes from my headphones

I love The Ramones. I just do. I can’t get enough of them. They don’t have a bad album in my opinion. My favorite album is Road to Ruin because it is the one I heard first. I can’t possibly pick the best, because they all have a ton of value. 

I came across a podcast called Ramones of the Day. The show was “live” between 2015 and 2019. The premise is, two friends, Phillip and Molly, listen to and analyze every Ramones song in alphabetical order. That is 187 episodes over five years. The show was such a joy. Even if you don’t like The Ramones, listening to two people give five years of their lives to defending what many would call a “low form” of art was just fantastic. You can listen to the episodes here or search for them wherever you get podcasts. 

Notes from my bookshelf

The aforementioned podcast listening and Ramones-a-sance started with a book I read and ended with me reading a new book. The book I read was called Why The Ramones Matter by Donna Gaines. She is a sociologist who studies the band in depth, got to know them, and then interviewed their fans. Her finding is…The Ramones, like all art, matter to someone, and so, even if that art affects the life of one person, encourages one person to give another person some grace, or gives a shy person an opening to strike up a conversation with someone over a shared interest in that art, then, guess what? It matters.

Phillip Mottaz, of the aforementioned podcast Ramones of the Day, happens to be an author as well. I found out when I listened to the bonus episode of ROTD from 2021, where he talked about his upcoming books. The one I picked up was called Deadly Maybe. Which features fictionalized versions of the members of the Britpop band Oasis, brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, being forced to reunite to solve a murder. He published it in 2024, six days before the news broke that the band was really reuniting. He obviously predicted the future. Now they just need to solve crime.

If you want to hear Phillip and I have a conversation about his writing, The Ramones, and art, and music, you can listen to it here. 

Notes from my keyboard

I passed the 100K word and 300 page mark of Haunting Northanger. I can see the end! It is going to be great. I can’t wait for you to meet Cat. Book 4 of The Austen Chronicles, Jane, is through the editing process and is being typeset. The release day is….10/10/26. Mark your calendars!

In really, really exciting news, the new 52 Love collection curated by Tonya Todd is out in the world. If you buy it on the publisher’s site, you can get a discount. My short story is called “Play it Again Junior.” It features Junior Price and two of her sisters from Welcome to Mansfield, as well as a flashback to their mother’s time at Mansfield College. The book is a collection of short stories about love, and mine is about the love between sisters and how the simple act of sending someone a note is an act of love. Plus, of course, they listen to music in the story as is implied in the title. You can listen to the playlist here.